About Wild Leek Farm

The roughly 5 acres of land that make up Wild Leek Farm are situated just outside the city of Guelph, Ontario. We are less than 10km from city hall by car, and less than 6km by foot or bicycle via local trail systems.

Since the early 1800’s, our farmland has acted as a homestead, wood lot and summer grazing place for cattle. It has been untouched by modern/commercial agriculture, and as such the soil we grow in has never been treated with synthetic fertilizers and/or pesticides and we plan to keep it that way.

Our farm’s energy is provided purely by electricity and we expect that the solar output from our 33 panels will meet or outweigh the power we use over a calendar year.

There are many uncultivated spaces along the borders of our one acre market garden that act as refuge for insects, birds, and snakes, who in turn keep the balance of garden pests under control. We also benefit from these spaces as the “weeds” that grow here are some of the most beautiful native wild flowers Ontario has to offer. We are proud of the habitat we nurture and what that means to our local pollinator and wildlife populations. We have seen many species at risk on our farm including: turtles, bees and birds.

Beyond our market garden, we have an expanse of maple forest that fosters a great deal of wildlife, and wild edibles – including our namesake wild leeks!

As our fledgling farm expands and thrives we hope to include a few more animals in our lives, and expand our operation to include fruit trees, hop and mushroom cultivation, and small batch maple syrup.

Our “Farmosophy”

We are firm believers in growing food based on the principals of Agroecology. For us, this means farming in a way that mimics a natural ecosystem as much as possible, being conscious of how what we do affects our family and our community, and attempting to pay ourselves a living wage while making quality healthy food purchases universally attainable.

One of the most common questions we get is “are you certified organic?”. The short answer is no, not yet, but we feel we do better. We value the principals of organic certification and commend farmers who have chosen to certify. However at present, we have chosen not to.

As mentioned above, our land has been untouched by conventional agriculture. All of our seed purchases are either certified organic, or where certain varieties are unavailable, we strictly use untreated and non-GMO seed. We follow a crop rotation plan that not only limits soil degradation, but also reduces our need for pest controls.

We do our very best to maintain biodiversity, employ natural predator prey relationships, feed the soil equally or more so than the plants, and above all never add anything into the system that would cause harm.

Our small size allows us to protect our crops through careful planting strategies, and by making use of physical barriers such as floating row cover and insect netting. We have to date not used any pesticides – organically allowable or otherwise.

We maintain our beds by hand the majority of the time, running our walk-behind tractor only when necessary for early season raised bed reinforcement and seed bed preparation.